An ''Open Type'' style dialog is available for opening tasks (<code>Ctrl+Shift+F11<c/ode>) and for activating tasks (<code>Ctrl+Shift+F12</code>). The list is initially populated by recently active tasks. The active task can also be deactivated via <code>Ctrl+Shift+F9</code>. This can be used as a keyboard-only alternative for multi-tasking without the ''Task List'' view visible. These actions appear in the ''Navigate'' menu.

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An ''Open Type'' style dialog is available for opening tasks (<code>Ctrl+F12</code>) and for activating tasks (<code>Ctrl+F9</code>). The list is initially populated by recently active tasks. The active task can also be deactivated via <code>Ctrl+Shift+F9</code>. This can be used as a keyboard-only alternative for multi-tasking without the ''Task List'' view visible. These actions appear in the ''Navigate'' menu.

Introduction

Mylar is a task-focused UI for Eclipse that makes working with very large workspaces as easy as working with small ones. Mylar extends Eclipse with mechanisms for keeping track of the tasks that you work on. A task is defined as any unit of work that you want to recall or share with others, such as a bug reported by a user or a note to yourself about improving a feature. You can store tasks locally in your workspace, or they can come from one or more task repositories. To connect to a task repository, you must have a connector that supports that repository. (A task repository is a bug/ticket/issue tracker such as Bugzilla, Trac, or JIRA).

Once your tasks are integrated, Mylar monitors your work activity on those tasks to identify information relevant to the task-at-hand. Mylar monitors Eclipse and captures your interaction in a task context. System artifacts such as files, types, methods, and fields get assigned a degree-of-interest based on how recently and frequently you interact with them. This results in uninteresting elements being filtered from view within Eclipse, allowing you to focus on on what is important. From this, Mylar creates a task context, which is the set of all artifacts related to your task. These can include methods you have edited, APIs you have referred to, and documents you have browsed. Mylar uses this task context to focus the Eclipse UI on interesting information, hide what's uninteresting, and automatically find what's related. Having the information you need to get your work done at your fingertips improves your productivity by reducing the time you spend searching, scrolling, and navigating. By making task context explicit, Mylar also facilitates multitasking, planning, reusing past efforts, and sharing expertise.

For tutorials and articles on using Mylar refer to the Publications page. The role of this document is to provide up-to-date documentation on a listing of the key Mylar features and is not intended as a tutorial, and to allow users to contribute additional documentation.

Put a check in the box next to Mylar. If you don't mind downloading some stuff you don't need, go ahead and select Next. Otherwise, expand the Mylar line (by clicking on the disclosure triangle) and select what you want. We recommend downloading the Task List, the Focused UI, and connectors appropriate to the bug repository that you use -- Bugzilla, Trac, or Jira. (Note that to download Jira, you need both the core and the connector.) You can download Mylar without a bug repository, but it won't be as interesting an experience.

Read the license agreements, accept or decline as appropriate, and either select Next (if you accept) or Cancel (if you do not accept).

You will see a list of features and where to install them. If the default installation directory is fine, select Finish.

Errors you might get during the download process:

Network connection problems encountered during search means that Eclipse couldn't find the location you entered. This might be because you copied something incorrectly (watch for extra characters -- even extra spaces can cause errors), or because the site went down. You might be able to see if the site is down by copying the URL into your Web browser.

Update manager failure means that Eclipse could not access the update site, or that it got confused about the configuration state of your Eclipse. First try updating again to see if the update site is accessible.

If you are trying to update the JIRA connector you can also try de-selecting that feature in case the Tigris.org update site is not accessible. Using use Search for new features.. when installing can help to avoid this problem. If that does not work see the feature configuration troubleshooting below.

You will probably get a warning that the feature is unsigned. If you trust that hackers have not befouled the Mylar plug-in, select Install All.

You will get a dialog box asking if you would like to restart Eclipse. We recommend that you select Yes.

Download Required Applications

Mylar needs the Java 5 virtual machine. (You do not need to use the 1.5 compiler, just the 1.5 VM.) You also need a web browser that works with the Standard Widget Toolkit; Windows and MacOS users are fine, but Linux users might have to download another browser.

Download and configure Java 5 or 6

To check the version of the Java virtual machine that Eclipse was launched with to to Help -> About Eclipse SDK -> Configuration Details and verify that the java.vm.version is 1.5.

Mac users should refer to the last comment on bug 1163477 for instructions on how to change the 1.4 default.

For those experiencing unstable performance with Linux using the Sun JVM, download the IBM JVM, which will require you to register with IBM prior to download.

In Unix, set the environment variable JAVA_HOME to the root of the JDK1.5 installation and/or set the PATH variable to put the JDK1.5 executable directory before any other VM executable directories. For example, under bash in Unix:

Installing Browser on Linux

Mylar uses the Standard Widget Toolkit Browser, which means that there must be a browser on the system that works with the SWT Browser. For Windows and MacOS, the standard works fine, but on some Linux distributions, you will need to download one. Note: as of 3 Oct 2006, default Firefox distributions for Linux will not work; errors such as "Could not create Browser page: No more handles (java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: ...)" may appear.

Before testing the browser support in Mylar, you must first ensure that the Eclipse internal browser is correctly configured. To test to see if your browser is properly configured, select Window -> Show View -> Other -> General -> Internal Web Browser, then try to bring up a web page.

Notice: You must use the GTK2 version of Mozilla for internal browser integration.

Notice: The internal browser does not correctly support HTTPS. See bug 80033.

Mylar Task Management features makes use of Eclipse's internal browser, which may require additional install steps listed below. You also have the option of disabling Mylar's use of the internal browser via Preferences -> Mylar -> Tasks.

The following steps have been verified on Fedora Core 5, and OpenSuSE 10.1.

If you are getting exceptions indicating missing libraries, check that the paths are accurate and that you have the libraries required. For example, on our test box a library was still missing after these steps. The libstdc++.so.5 was being reported as missing. To solve this problem, find an rpm online that will install the missing legacy library. In our case we found necessary rpm (compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-47.fc4.i386.rpm) on rpmfind.net using their search facility. See also: Standard Widget Toolkit FAQ

Installing on MacOS

If you see errors like the following it may be due to Xerces missing from the Mac JDK so you may need to add it to your default classpath. Please refer to and comment on bug 144287 if you see this problem.

Could not create Bugzilla editor input
java.io.IOException: SAX2 driver class org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser not found

To ensure that you are using the 1.5 VM refer to the last comment on bug 1163477 for instructions on how to change the 1.4 default.

Rich Task List Install

Mylar's Task Management features can be used purely as a rich client to supported bug/task/issue trackers, and do not require the programming facilities of the full Eclipse SDK.

Use the update site listed on Mylar download page for installing the Task List and Bugzilla Connector. Note that Mylar requires Java 5.

Starting Mylar for the first time

Once everything has been installed, upon restarting, you will see a dialog box titled Mylar Recommended Preferences. It's probably best to accept the defaults unless you are already familiar with Mylar.

Mylar introduces a number of views to the Eclipse workbench that can be found via Window->Show View->Other, under the Mylar category.

Configuration

After you have installed Mylar, there are a number of things that you can configure to make your experience even richer.

Turn off or increase the number of editors to leave open (Preferences -> General -> Editors -> Number of opened editors before closing). Since Mylar will manage the open editors with task activation, this number can be set higher or automatic closing disabled entirely.

If auto folding is used, the Outline view can be closed or made a fast view

Views

Outline: can keep closed for Java development, since the Package Explorer and folded signatures should provide enough context, and the in-place Outline Ctrl+O can be used when needed.

Task List

Weekly Progress

When in Focus on Workweek mode (right-most toolbar button), the Task List will show a JUnit-style progress bar which indicates progress on the tasks scheduled for that week. Each task that is scheduled for the week but note yet completed adds to the bar. A task completed by you adds to the green progress in the bar. Deferring a task to a future week will also add to the apparent progress because it will remove the task from the current week. Mousing over the bar will indicate details about your progress, such as the number of tasks and hours completed. To avoid the need for manual estimation by default every task is estimated for 1 hour, but if you have longer or shorter running tasks that week you can adjust the estimate in the task editor's Planning page to ensure that the progress bar is accurate.

Note that when in Focus on Workweek mode the Task List will show each of the tasks scheduled for this week. However, overdue tasks and those with incoming changes will also show, making the number of tasks visible not be a reliable indicator of progress on the tasks planned for the week.

Progress for Categories

Incoming Changes

All comments added since your last reading of a repository task will be automatically expanded when a task with incoming changes is opened. Incoming changes are retrieved with the background synchronization to avoid waiting for the server when opening. Note that a background synchronization is still kicked off upon opening in case changes came in since the last scheduled synchronization. Repository tasks can be explicitly marked as read or unread.

Task Repository Integration

Task repositories are easy to add, and can be named via the Task Repositories view. An icon decoration indicates the repository type. A task repository can be associated with a project, enabling it to be used for actions such as resolving bug hyperlinks. Note: you do not need to associate all of your projects with repositories after updating, since you will be prompted to do this when the associate is needed.

Open Task dialog

An Open Type style dialog is available for opening tasks (Ctrl+F12) and for activating tasks (Ctrl+F9). The list is initially populated by recently active tasks. The active task can also be deactivated via Ctrl+Shift+F9. This can be used as a keyboard-only alternative for multi-tasking without the Task List view visible. These actions appear in the Navigate menu.

Repository task attachments

Repository task attachments (supported by the Bugzilla and Trac connectors) can be attached via drag-and-drop from both within the Eclipse workspace and from outside, and from text selections, which will invoke the attachment wizard. Attachments can be opened with a browser or corresponding editor.

By default, Mylar keeps the task list backups in the <workspace>/.mylar/backup folder.
The location of this file, as well as backup scheduling, can be changed in Preferences -> Mylar -> Tasks in the Task Data -> Backup section.

How do I restore my task list from a backup?

Task and context data can be restored from a backup snapshot zip file via File -> Import -> Mylar Task Data. By default backup snapshots are taken daily and kept for 30 days.

Note: uninstalling a connector will cause all of the queries and tasks of that kind to disappear from the Task List, but if you reinstall that connector they will reappear.

If the Task List is blank, either Mylar failed to install or update, or there was a problem reading the Task List. By default Mylar keeps your Task List in <workspace>/.mylar/tasklist.xml. If you move workspaces, and have not changed the Mylar data directory via the Task List preference page, the new location will be used when Eclipse restarts (hit Restore Defaults on that page to copy tasks back to the default location). If your tasks disappear due to to a bug you can check the .mylar folder for a tasklist-backup.xml file, which will contain the previously-saved list.

Report Bugs from Error Log

Bugs can created directly from events in the Error Log view. This will create a new repository task editor with the summary and description populated with the error event's details. If the Connector you are using does not have a rich editor, the event details will be placed into the clipboard so that you can paste them into the web-based editor that will be opened automatically.

Automatic Duplicate Detection

The Search for Duplicates button on the New Repository Task editor encourages and facilitates finding similar bug reports before creating a new one. Potential duplicates are displayed in the Search view which can be used to open a bug and comment or vote if a duplicate is found. The current duplicate detection mechanism uses stack traces, either automatically inserted by the Report as Bug mechanism, or manually pasted into the Description area. All descriptions and comments of bugs on the corresponding repository are included in the search.

Submitting Contexts

When submitting comments, contexts can be attached by selecting the corresponding check-box in the Actions section.

Task-Focused UI

Alt+Click Navigation

When a view is in Focused mode, you can Alt+Click a node in order to temporarily show all of it's children.

Once an element that was not interesting is selected with the mouse, the uninteresting elements will disappear.

Alt+Right Arrow can be used instead of Alt+Click, but still requires a mouse selection of an element in order for the uninteresting elements to disappear.

Alt+Click can be held down when drilling down from a top-level element, e.g. navigating from a project element with everything filtered right down to a method declaration.

Multiple Alt+Clicks are supported, but as soon as a single selection is made all uninteresting elements will disappear.

Auto Apply Mylar on Navigator Views

For navigator views (Package Explorer, Project Explorer and Navigator) the Apply Mylar button can be set to automatically toggle on with task activation and off with task deactivation. Note that the context-related preferences (including this one) are in Preferences -> Mylar -> Context.

Team Support

Configuring the Synchronize view for change sets

There are two modes for Eclipse's Change Sets support: the models mode (Eclipse 3.2 and later) and the standard mode. These modes are unrelated to Mylar and apply to both Mylar's automated Change Sets and the ones you can created manually in Eclipse. The models mode is toggled via Synchronize View -> Preferences -> CVS -> Allow Models to participate in synchronizations. The Eclipse UI for Change Sets is not obvious so consider the following guidelines if you are having problems with it.

If you are using the standard mode, Change Sets toolbar button will only appear if the Synchronize view is in Incoming or Outgoing mode, not in the combined Incoming/Outgoing mode. This button must be pressed in order for change sets to appear. For working with CVS two modes are indistinguishable beyond this limitation. Subclipse only supports the standard mode. If you switch modes you must re-create your synchronization via the Synchronize... button available from the first toolbar button on the Synchronize view.

If you are using the models mode, you will notice that the Mylar Active Change Sets work show up with a decoration in the lower-right corner, and that you can view both incoming and outgoing change sets at the same time. However, note that there is a refresh problem with this mode (bug 142395). To work around it, if a Change Set you expect is missing or if you get a "There are no more Incoming/Outgoing changes" message in the view on startup, toggle the third toolbar button between All Models and Change Sets. If that doesn't resolve it activate and deactivate the current task.

Note: if you have enabled the models mode, but do not see the overlay icon visible in the screenshot below, it is because you are using an old non-models based synchronization. Old synchronizations are not updated automatically when you switch modes so you must create a new one.

Automatic change sets

Operations such as committing, updating, and patch creation can all be performed on Mylar's automatically managed Change Sets. Right+click the change set node to get the corresponding Team menu. Changed resources that are not a part of any task context will appear under the root of the Synchronize view. If needed missing resources can be added to the task context Change Set via the Synchronize View by right+clicking the resource and selecting Add to and then selecting the corresponding task.

Automatic commit messages

Mylar will automatically generate commit messages for you when you use its Change Set support. To modify the template go to Window -> Preferences -> Mylar -> Team -> Commit Comment Templates.

Task Repository Connectors

Mylar allows you to collaborate on tasks via a shared task repository, also known as bug tracking systems. In order to collaborate, you need to have a Connector to your particular repository.

Bugzilla Connector

Once Mylar is installed there are a few steps involved to get up and running.

To access tasks (reports/issues) on a repository such as Bugzilla you must first set up a Task Repository

Navigate to Window -> Show View -> Other -> Mylar -> Task Repositories to open the Task Repositories view.

Launch the add repository wizard by pressing the add repository button located in the view's toolbar .

The first page of this wizard asks for the type of repository you wish to connect to (if you have installed multiple connectors). Select Bugzilla for example and press the Next button.

On the second page you can enter the repository's address and your login credentials. After filling in these details, press the Validate button to ensure the repository exists and your login credentials are valid. Once the settings validate you can finish the wizard. The repository you added will be shown in the Task Repositories view.

Once the repository has been created, you may add queries to the Task List.

In the Task List view right click anywhere in the list pane and select New Query from the context menu.

Choose the repository you added in the previous steps.

Enter query title and search criteria and then press Finish.

A query with the title you gave will appear in the Task List and will synchronize with the remote repository. If the query has hits they will appear within the query folder you've created.

Double click to open a hit. Double click on the query to edit the query parameters.

Click on the lightly shaded button (left of task icon) in the Task List to activate the task. Click again to deactivate.

Trac Connector

The Trac connector offers two access methods:

Trac 0.9 and later: In this mode the standard Trac web interface is used for repository access. Tickets may be created and edited through a web browser.

XML-RPC Plugin (Trac trunk): This requires the latest revision (1175) of the XmlRpcPlugin for Trac to be enabled for the accessed repository. The XmlRpcPlugin provides a remote interface to the Trac repository and is distributed separately from Trac (see #217). Currently, Trac and the XmlRpcPlugin need to be installed from source. See these install instructions for requirements and documentation.

The Trac connector integrates Trac queries into the Task List. If you do not know your Trac repository version use the Automatic setting and click Validate Settings.

New Task Editor

A rich editor for creating new Trac tasks is available for repositories that use XML-RPC (see the FAQ for XML-RPC configuration instructions).

Rich Editor, Attachments and Offline support

The Trac connector supports the rich task editor. Attributes and comments can be viewed and edited offline, synchronization is done in the background, and attachments can be posted and retrieved.

Task Context attachments are supported via the context menu actions in the Task List. This support requires the Trac XML-RPC plug-in to be enabled and the integration will fall back to the web mode if it is not, (see: Trac Connector troubleshooting).

JIRA Connector

Note that the JIRA SOAP/RPC services have to be running on the server. For additional details see the Requirements on the JIRA Dashboard page. For supported versions see the download page.

Generic Web Repository Connector

The generic web repository connector is part of the Mylar install. Refer to the FAQ for instructions on setting up queries to repositories that are not currently supported by a rich connector (e.g. IssueZilla, GForge, SourceForge, phpBB, VBulletin, Google Code and Mantis). The parameter list visible below is used for configuring project properties for projects that require them. These properties are typically derived from the query URL used to access the repository. Matching rules can be edited under the Advanced Configuration section on both the Repository Settings page and the Edit Query page.

A generic web-based repository connector allows retrieval of a list of issues from a web page using simple template configuration.

For example, consider the configuration steps for GlassFish project at java.net:

1. Create new Generic web-based repository. GlassFish is using IssueZilla and has preconfigured template that can be selected by server url https://glassfish.dev.java.net/issues. You can also specify all fields manually in the Advanced Configuration section. For GlassFish the following settings are required:

Note:Query Pattern field should have a regexp with 1st matching group on Issue ID and 2nd on Issue Description.

Note: the above fields are using parameter substitution ${..}. Variables serverUrl, userId and password are substituted from the values of corresponding fields of the repository preference page. In addition you can specify any arbitrary parameters and their values that will be also substituted into the template fields.

2. Create a new query for the GlassFish task repository created above.

Query URL and Query Pattern in the Repository Preferences are used as default query parameters and can be overwritten in Advanced Configuration section in Query Preferences. Custom parameter values can also be overridden here as well as new parameters for substitution into the specific query.

Templates for the following issue tracking systems are included with the web connector:

Google Code Hosting (code.google.com)

IssueZilla (java.net, dev2dev, tigris.org)

GForge (objectweb.org)

SourceForge (sf.net)

Mantis

phpBB

vBulletin

Integration with other tools

Mylar can be integrated with other tools. Mylar relies on Bridges to integrate the context model with the structure and UI features of domain-specific tools. To create a Bridge, see Creating Bridges.

The core set of Bridges supports the Eclipse SDK (i.e. has bridges for Java, JUnit, PDE, Ant and Resources). The Resources Bridge enables a basic level of interoperability with other tools that use files (e.g. .php, .cpp), and enables Mylar filtering to work for generic views that show those files (i.e. the Project Explorer, Navigator) and any corresponding markers (i.e. the Problems and Tasks views). This is only the most basic context model integration, and does not offer the benefits of a specialized structure bridge, such as making declarations part of the context and providing Active Search facilities. Without a Bridge Mylar cannot be applied to tool-specific views.